Letters to Sartre Read online

  My love, I never felt our love more strongly than that evening at Les Vikings, where you gazed at me so tenderly I felt like weeping. And what a delightful train took us to Saint-Germain, my love!4 If I weren’t so uncomfortably positioned for writing, I’d spend pages telling you how happy I am and how much I love you. But I take comfort from the fact that you felt it clearly yourself, didn’t you, little man? Here are a hundred kisses, each carrying the same message.

  I was very annoyed yesterday by a pneu I got from the Llama,5 trying to be wounding in a really infantile way. I shall be very sweet to him on Wednesday, but I find such injustice towards both you and me highly unpleasant. I’m copying out his note word for word, including the significant crossings-out:

  ‘10 o’clock. Forgive me for disturbing you amid all the tender and colourful memories that are doubtless prolonging for you your own dear love’s passage. Nevertheless:

  Can you be at home on Wednesday afternoon? I shall probably arrive at about 3-3.15, since I have a lecture at the Ecole at 1.30.6 Otherwise (and Sartre must have shown you how unnecessary it was to put yourself out on my account) come and have lunch at Adolphe’s on Thursday at 12.15 (my apologies for not being able, alas!, to take you to Pierre’s). I take the liberty of insisting — insofar as I still have any right to do so ‘- that I see you on either Wednesday or Thursday. I have some quite important things to tell you, since it is possible I shall never see you again. For you must understand that I have had my fill of the pretty situation that now exists, as a result of that September of yours and the two months of lying which followed it, and that I deserve something better than the crumbs — the relations continued out of charity ‘because I am unhappy’ — that you both offer me with such elegance.

  Do not be alarmed, at any rate. And, above all, do not write to me. That would be the best way not to see me again at all As things are, I shall tell you quite frankly I am too unhappy to have been able as yet to take any final decision. I shall postpone this, I promise you (and my promises I keep), until Wednesday.’

  I shall assure him, of course, that neither you nor I is prolonging our relations with him out of pity. I want, above all, to try and make him feel my affection for him — and yours too. But I shall tell him, all the same, how astonishing I find this note of his. For absolutely nothing had happened between us from the Saturday when I left him and he was so pleased with me until this Monday — he always said that he accepted this situation, and that what he feared was seeing it change. He, who finds it so easy to reconcile his affections for his wife, for me and for the Humous Lady,7 is really the last person who can reproach me for loving somebody besides him. I feel, too, that I’ve put myself out for him more than once, and that these parentheses are pointlessly unpleasant. I was very upset that day at the Napoli and the Café des Sports, when I saw the Llama being so nice after the letter was discovered. I was still a bit upset at the Closerie des Lilas the other day. But this note hasn’t upset me at all, because I see it as mere jealousy of a thoroughly disagreeable kind.

  How are you, little man? I’m really longing for a letter from you tomorrow. We’ll be seeing each other soon, won’t we, my love? You promised, so I’m taking good care of myself. I love you, I love you. I am, most tenderly, your own Beaver.

  S. de Beauvoir

  Monsieur Sartre

  Villa Polownia

  St Symphorien

  (Indre et Loire)8

  1935

  Hotel du Midi

  Place des Marronniers

  Valgorge (Ardèche)

  Valgorge, 28 July [1935]

  My dear love,

  Here is the first of the two letters you’ll find in Paris, a few days from now. I still have no news of you, of course, since I haven’t yet been to Villefort; I do so hope you’re not being too bored.9 Know always how tenderly I love you, my beautiful little marvel. The days are beginning to orient themselves most delightfully towards you, and this morning I’m enjoying telling myself how, in a week’s time, at this very hour, I shall be in the presence of yourself. For I shall certainly go and pick you up at 1 in the morning on Saturday at Ste Cécile d’Andorge: I can’t wait to see you again, as though you’d been away from me for ages.

  My poor dear love, I shall be giving you a detailed account of my trip, map in hand. It’s becoming more and more agreeable. Since the day I wrote to you, the scenery has become really beautiful. Some parts are rather similar to the Hautes-Alpes, with great, bleak, undulating grasslands like the ones we saw near the Col du Lautaret. Then, just a day later, you’re transported from these to spots looking exactly like Corsica. On the other hand, there are plenty of landscapes resembling nothing but themselves, very beautiful and strange. I slept 1,700 metres up in a windswept mountain hut, where I was really cold;10 I awoke between two seas of cloud scudding above and below me at such unimaginable speeds that I’d have been carried away by the wind if I’d attempted to move. I had to wait quite a while before I could make my way down to the valley, where that very same day my feet caught the sun so badly that I was totally paralysed and reduced to an evening of immobility. I promptly bought some woollen socks and large espadril-les, so I’ve now managed to reduce to a minimum all the minor torments of blisters and scratches to which my feet formerly subjected me. So I spent Monday afternoon rubbing myself with ointments and reading Colette’s Sido, which is pretty awful. Next day I could walk like a marvel, and I slept beneath the stars without feeling the least chill even at dawn. Since then I’ve slept twice more in barns, including last night when I was wonderfully snug, and the rest of the time in small hotels. I lost my way a couple of times in woods and thickets, getting dreadfully scratched and managing to lose Collinet’s guide;11 but that doesn’t matter, since I’m resolved not to buy him another. By and large I find my bearings like a dream, making 30 or 35 km. a day on excellent trails. In the afternoon I usually take a bus. They never do more than 10 km. an hour in these parts, so that covering 20 km. takes up two hours, while lunching and reading Le Petit Marseillais (the only paper you can buy hereabouts, since the area is a kind of suburb of Marseilles, inhabited solely by tourists and holiday-makers from the Midi) takes up another two. The hot hours of the day are usually spent in this way; I walk only in the mornings, and in the evenings after four. I also make use of private cars a lot, either when I’m tired or as part of a concerted plan; by now I stop them as easily as buses.

  With everything ordered in this way, I don’t have a moment to be bored, or even to wonder how to fill my time. This morning, exceptionally, having arrived at ten at a godforsaken place from which a bus I’m planning to take leaves only at three, I have lots of time to spare. I ordered a coffee, read Le Petit Marseillais and am now writing to you. The weather is delightful, as usual. Since I’ve so far been almost continuously in the mountains, there’s a breeze even at noon and at the same time the sky is completely clear. I hope we shall be equally lucky.

  My dear love, I’m going to take such good care of you, I’m going to be very sweet to you, I so much want you to have a nice little holiday. I’ll write another note in two or three days, to give you the very latest news. Until Saturday evening, my love. If I’m not at Ste Cécile, come to Florae by noon on Sunday as arranged. If I’m not there either, go to the Hôtel Central and ask whether there’s any mail for you; and if I’m not there by four in the afternoon, alert the local police. I’m really looking forward to this little trip with you. I love you passionately, my beloved.

  S. de Beauvoir

  I visited Vals, which is quite pleasant as spas go — perhaps partly due to the fact that it was only eight in the morning and the streets were empty.

  I swill lemonade which is exquisite in these parts, being made precisely from Vals water. I eat one enormous meal daily, which is sometimes very good but always accompanied by dreadful wine, and one small, cold meal. I have plenty of money and live very well.

  Do you know the story of Ortega and the bull? Or the one about a strangel
y invigorating hair dye? Remind me to tell you them, and also to tell you about a certain boy scout.

  There are pinball machines everywhere I go, and once or twice I’ve almost been tempted to play.

  1936

  Dear little being,

  Everything’s as fine as can be for you, but I’m too fagged to explain it all in detail She was overcome with regret that you could have misinterpreted things, and is thinking of writing to you.12 She said with a meaningful smile that she hadn’t changed her feelings since Saturday, ‘on the contrary’. — Till tomorrow at about nine. I’m going to bed. I kiss you, o best of little men.

  Beaver

  1937

  [probably early 1937]

  My love,

  I’ve had a night punctuated by the most passionate little Erlebnisse for you13 — which has meant that I’ve slept very badly. I had a delightful dream about Maurice Chevalier, who was simultaneously Colette and very surprised by this: ‘Isn’t she a woman?’, he was saying. Though hardly daisy fresh, I’m no longer feeling tragic. I just wish I could be there beside you, so handsome in your little blue pyjamas, and kiss you with all my strength. I love you. Not being able to see you during the day brings tears to my eyes (my tiredness still brings me close to tears, but the tender kind, not the sad any more). I’m afraid I won’t be daisy fresh this evening, but you can be sure of one thing. I shall be terribly happy to see you. I love you so passionately. I’m sorry, I haven’t been as sweet as I should. But I kiss your sweet self, and your darling, lovely little face.

  Your charming Beaver

  You did cancel the wire?

  Work well, I love you.

  Taverne Charley

  20 Boulevard Garibaldi

  Marseilles [10 September 1937]14

  My love,

  I was pretty much distraught when your little face disappeared from sight, and for a moment I stood helplessly in the station, quite out of my wits. And then, all of a sudden, that evening I had to spend alone in Marseilles struck me as imbued with a kind of gloomy poetry. There was a high wind outside, no question of going for a walk round the port in my poor summer clothes. I had no real desire to do so, in any case. So I took my bag to the left luggage office, then decided to go and see the Mathurin picture at the Cinéac.15 In the bag, I found Eyeless in Gaza and the little textbook, which means our losses have really been very minimal. I stowed away the bits and pieces you so kindly handed me from the train door, and set off towards the Canebière. For 3 francs, I saw a programme lasting an hour and a half; this included a kind of feature on pickpockets, demonstrating fifty ingenious methods of stealing suitcases, bags and wallets. There were also some amazing acrobatic stunts — a guy diving off Brooklyn Bridge, another crossing some American street on a tightrope 300 metres up, etc. — and a documentary film in colour on Guatemala, which at least saved me from a nasty disappointment, since the Mathurin is pretty worthless. But comfortably ensconced in my armchair, I quite recovered my spirits during that hour. My neighbour tried to play footsy with me, though actually it was as bright as day in the auditorium, a strange, sad light which didn’t impair the projected image at all.

  Then I came here and ate a fillet steak with fried bread, potatoes and artichoke hearts that consoled me for all my troubles: a miracle, I hadn’t thought such a thing still existed. The place is delightful, it makes me feel odd and most extremely poetical to be spending an evening in this little inn, all by myself, just like in the old days when you didn’t yet love me quite so much — there are still as many photos on the walls, and the same little cushions on the wooden benches. We’ll go together next year.

  It’s 10.30 now. I’ve done the crossword in Marianne, which is ridiculously easy, and realize that instead of The Safety-Match Mystery you bought me The Adventures of Ellery Queen — but it’s just as good. I’m going to write to my mother and read a bit, then in a little while I’ll go off to the station and try to find a corner, after which I’ll sleep like a log. I’m so sleepy I feel as though I were drunk. I’m quite choked with tenderness for you, my love, it makes me a bit pathetic to love you so much. Did you manage to get some sleep, my little man? You had nothing for your supper, you poor little person. Write to me very soon, tell me whether your little lip is better and if the lycée’s miles away16 — write to Urmatt, Bas-Rhin, where I shall be on the 16th. Try to have the letter there by the morning of the 16th. As for the money, don’t forget that it should be sent to Ban, Bas-Rhin.

  Goodbye, my love. I’m lacerated everywhere by being far away from you after all these days — what a delightful little face you had this morning, curled up beside me in your little cocoon. I kiss you passionately.

  Your charming Beaver

  Envelope:

  Monsieur Sartre,

  Hôtel Royal Bretagne,

  11 bis, rue de la Gaité

  Paris

  [Urmatt, Alsace]17

  Friday, 17 [September 1937]

  Most dear little being,

  I found your letter yesterday evening at Saales, and was very happy because it was so long and loving. When I wake up each morning it makes me sad to think I’m going to spend another long day without you. I’m hoping to find another letter from you shortly at the Urmatt post office, but I’m very much afraid you won’t have had the wit to send it there. I’m pissed off because I don’t know what address to give you, the weather’s filthy and it’s impossible to make any plan. Still, I’ll try and wire the name of some village in the course of the day. At any rate, I’ll be seeing you soon, I think you can count on me for the 22nd in the morning, as we probably won’t have enough left for a bed in Strasburg that last night. At latest I’ll be in Paris on the evening of the 22nd, I’ll meet you at the Dôme an hour or so after the train gets in — I’ll wire you the exact time on the 21st. I can’t wait to see you again, my love.

  I’ve been having an agreeable time up to now, but today the rain really is too heavy, we’re stuck in a little café in Urmatt for the entire day, I’m afraid. And I wonder whether the following days will be any better, which is rather a melancholy thought. It’s a pity, since otherwise this trip would be very pleasant. K.18 is charming, perfectly idyllic with me, entranced by everything, and best of all much lustier than might have been thought, quite Gallic even. The rain and wind don’t frighten her, she easily walks 5 or 6 hours a day; yesterday we actually walked for 7 hours, with only an hour’s halt, and if she was a bit the worse for wear by the end that was only because we hadn’t eaten all day and her feet were sopping wet — in any case, she made a very speedy recovery. The first day in Strasburg was very agreeable. She arrived, delighted by her journey, and I took her off for a stroll; it was cold but not raining, and we saw all the agreeable parts of Strasburg round the Pont aux Corbeaux. Behind the cathedral there’s an extremely pleasing little square, with lots of old inns and shady tea houses. We went inside one of them, it was crammed with Alsatians swilling beer and I drank a little white wine. Then we went up and wandered around the first floor of the building, through deserted Vine rooms’ and tea rooms, and came across an odd kind of hall with a dance-floor in the middle and closed boxes all round, from which vague whisperings could be heard; an Alsatian lady in a white apron, sitting on a chair, was guarding the entrance. As this bears the name ‘Dance Hall’, when we get back to Strasburg we’ll go in the evening and spend a little time there. After that we saw the cathedral and Place Gutenberg, and at 7 o’clock we had dinner at the Kammerzell, in the downstairs room, which is charming and where the prices are extraordinarily modest. At about 9 we found ourselves in a little square, enclosed on every side and reached by way of an arched passage. We climbed the stairs to a dance hall on the first floor of one house — it was jam-packed with people and we had difficulty finding two seats, in between two Alsatian families. Though it was all shabby respectability, Alsatians dancing the tango are a sight worth seeing — we danced a bit ourselves, with everyone looking askance at us because of our bare legs. We went
home fairly early, at around midnight, both dropping with exhaustion. Next morning we drank hot coffee in the little hotel café and ate delicious brioches on the way, then made our pilgrimage: K.’s lycée, which is a beautiful old house on the canal bank where we went in and traipsed through the corridors and classrooms, and where we stole a fine white handkerchief embroidered in blue; the Orangery, which is a very agreeable small park; and the neighbourhood where the K.s used to live, a wealthy neighbourhood by the canal which I well remember passing through with you.

  [...]

  This morning we arrived by bus at Urmatt, 30 km from Saales; it’s raining, so we came into this inn where we may have to stay all day. If the weather lifts, we’ll go up the Donon. Then K. wants to see some ruined castles again, probably we’ll go down towards Selestat and Ribeauville, and I’ll finally show her Riquewihr, Kaysersberg and Colmar. She’s in raptures over the trip, both because she’s making it with me and because it’s so healthy — all that fresh air and physical exercise. But she’s interested neither in the towns, nor in the villages, nor in the scenery, but exclusively in ruined castles or in her childhood memories. She has told me that the only place in France where she’d like to go — apart from Alsace — is Brittany, because she has read poetical stories about it. As for me, I’d be quite enjoying it if the weather were fine, even though Alsace is really a bit too orderly for my taste and anyway I’ve already seen the most pleasing things with you. I’m not bored, but it’s dreary and the time passes pretty slowly. I’m dying to be in Paris with you and to see you again. Goodbye for now, my little sweet husband. Try and pinch me a really long day or evening from your parents on the 22nd. I love you,